Inclusive science communication (ISC) responds to global challenges limited by Western-centric systems and perspectives on whose knowledge counts. Whilst science communication teaching often discusses values like mutual understanding and social justice, these are inconsistently integrated in curricula – if at all. Emma’s Master’s research at The University of Western Australia (UWA) highlighted this gap between inclusion ideals and the lack of explicit training: currently, inclusive praxis is often something communicators must develop independently through lived experience, rather than through their formal education.

As a Forrest Scholar at UWA, Emma’s PhD seeks to change this. Working with international educators, she will examine how inclusion is taught, its role as a core concept of science communication, and the obstacles and opportunities for embedding ISC in higher education. By co-designing new ideas and practical strategies, this research will bolster Western Australian science communication leadership, inform global discourse on training inclusive science communicators, and respond to state and national policies for integrating Indigenous knowledges and diverse ways of knowing. Ultimately, Emma’s work contributes to calls for graduates equipped to work effectively and ethically across cultures and ways of understanding – asking what this means in context and how it can disrupt inequitable systems.

As an experienced scientist, teacher, and science communicator, Emma stands at a place of intersectional understanding. Her position is informed by her whiteness, femininity, neurodiversity, and belief in inclusive approaches for social justice. As a Forrest Scholar at UWA, she looks forward to embracing the responsibility of this privilege to advance science communication education toward embedded inclusivity and equitable, positive impacts for and by its students.